The head of Russia’s largest oil firm, Rosneft, has pitched a massive Arctic oil project to Japanese companies in Tokyo, looking for foreign investment into the project estimated to cost as much as US$157 billion, Reuters reported on Wednesday, quoting three sources familiar with the meetings. Rosneft’s chief executive Igor Sechin has met with representatives from Mitsubishi Corporation, Mitsui & Co, Itochu Corporation, Inpex Corporation, Japan Petroleum Exploration (JAPEX), and Marubeni, to seek Japanese funding for the Vostok oil project, according to Reuters’s sources. Two of those sources told Reuters that the Russian oil giant would seek Japanese investors to finance between 10 percent and 40 percent of the project, which Rosneft plans in a joint venture with Independent Petroleum Company (IPC). In October, Russia’s deputy energy minister Pavel Sorokin said that the Vostok oil project – which would include not only field development but also pipelines, roads, and […]